POLLINATOR HEALTH UNDER MULTIPLE ENVIRONMENTAL STRESSORS: PESTICIDE EXPOSURE, NUTRITIONAL LIMITATION, MICROBIOME DYSBIOSIS, AND IMMUNE RESPONSES
Keywords:
pollinator health, pesticide exposure, nutritional stress, gut microbiome, immune responses, multi-stressor interactions
Abstract
Pollinator health is increasingly being affected by several environmental stressors acting at various molecular, physiological, behavioral, and ecological levels simultaneously. Of these stresses, pesticide exposure, nutritional limitation, microbiome dysbiosis, and altered immune function are especially noteworthy because they interact through shared biological pathways. Pesticides can affect neural signaling, oxidative balance, detoxification, metabolism and behavior, and food deprivation can decrease resources for development, reproduction, immune system function and chemical tolerance. The stability of microbial communities is also a crucial part of pollinator resilience as it plays a role in nutrient processing, xenobiotic metabolism, pathogen resistance and immune regulation. These systems can be stressed, leading to biological cascades, where one stressor modifies or amplifies the effects of another. These interactions can ultimately shape the survival of individuals, cognition, foraging efficiency, reproductive fitness, colony performance, population persistence, plant–pollinator networks, and ecosystem functioning. There is also evidence to show that there is significant variation in the response of the different categories of honey bees, bumblebees, solitary bees and other pollinating insects, which limits the value of using managed honey bees as the primary source for ecological risk assessment. Future research should incorporate realistic pesticide mixtures, nutritional environments, microbiome responses, pathogens, climate-related pressures, and species-specific traits within standardized multi-stressor frameworks. To enhance pollinator conservation and the maintenance of pollination-dependent biodiversity and food production, it is critical to integrate ecological management and biologically informed risk assessment.
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References
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29.Katumo, D. M., Liang, H., Ochola, A. C., Lv, M., Wang, Q. F., & Yang, C. F. (2022). Pollinator diversity benefits natural and agricultural ecosystems, environmental health, and human welfare. Plant Diversity, 44(5), 429-435.
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32.Langlois, A., Jacquemart, A. L., & Piqueray, J. (2020). Contribution of extensive farming practices to the supply of floral resources for pollinators. Insects, 11(11), 818.
33.Lau, P., Lesne, P., Grebenok, R. J., Rangel, J., & Behmer, S. T. (2022). Assessing pollen nutrient content: a unifying approach for the study of bee nutritional ecology. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 377(1853), 20210510.
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Published
2026-08-28
How to Cite
Dr. Sarah Wood, & Prof. Kumar Sapkota. (2026). POLLINATOR HEALTH UNDER MULTIPLE ENVIRONMENTAL STRESSORS: PESTICIDE EXPOSURE, NUTRITIONAL LIMITATION, MICROBIOME DYSBIOSIS, AND IMMUNE RESPONSES. IJRDO - JOURNAL OF BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE, 12(3), 93-112. https://doi.org/10.69980/bs.v12i3.6815
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